Report Card

Check to see whether your country is on track for girls’ education at http://www.globalmarch.org/gaw 2003.php(the site will help you find all the information you need to fill in the Education Report Card below, including the contact details of your Minister of Education).

If your country is not on track, download an "Education Report Card" to fill in - don’t forget to print off lots of copies and distribute them amongst your friends and family!

Grade your country’s progress in getting girls into school - simply answer yes or no to the evaluation questions. Remember, the more you answer no, the lower would be the grade!

Send one copy of the report card to your Minister of Education and one copy back to us by email or post at: Global March Against Child Labour L-6 Kalkaji, New Delhi - 110019, India Email: childhood@globalmarch.org

Make the appeal to your government even stronger by sending in the report cards with a community petition or letter to your education minister. The demands below may help give more ideas for lobbying your government:

I call on my government to:

Establish concrete targets, and allocate the resources needed to achieve them. Priority measures to achieve the 2005 goal must be included in national budgets, poverty reduction strategies and education sector plans.

Cut the costs to families of educating girls. Abolish fees and drop charges for essentials such as books and uniforms. Provide a free meal at school.

Address child labour. Many girls work instead of attending school, often earning in order to send their brothers to school. National governments must ratify and implement ILO Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour and on the Minimum Age for Employment. Governments should formalise a coherent policy on the elimination of child labour, linked to the provision of full-time, formal education.

Respect girls’ rights at school. Ensure that all schools provide for girls’ safety and dignity - starting with the basics, such as separate toilets. Enforce sanctions to end violence against girls in the classroom. Stop expelling pregnant girls and young mothers. Include life skills and HIV-AIDS prevention in the curriculum.

Educate women as well as girls. Women gain empowerment through adult education, and literate mothers are more likely to send their daughters to school.

If you live in a donor country call on your government to:

Increase aid for education. Achieving universal primary education and gender parity requires only USD $5.6bn per year in aid. Yet rich countries are currently giving only a quarter of what’s needed. The Fast Track Initiative provides a way to channel more aid to countries that are serious about the Education for All goals. It needs to be expanded to all low-income countries with good education plans.

Ensure that Overseas Development Aid for basic education includes strategies for the removal of child labourers from the workplace and integrates them into the education system.

Aid donors should pool resources in support of a comprehensive and co-ordinated national effort towards 2005. It’s time to stop diverting money into competing mini-projects.